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So Dorie’s book arrived just as I was preparing to leave for Manitoulin Island. I did manage to read it cover to cover but didn’t have the opportunity to do any cooking from it. There as so many things that impress me about this latest book from Dorie but most notable is that the majority of recipes call for ingredients that are easy to find and not particularly expensive (except in the ingredient desert of Manitoulin!). Further, Dorie offers advice on what can be done ahead of time and what can be frozen for later. For a household of just two this is most appreciated.

So here on the Island I made my first recipe, the Savory Cheese and Chive Bread

click.Chives were in short supply on the Island so I used the green parts of a bunch of scallions, my Gruyere cheese is still in my fridge down south so I subbed some nice Cabot Cheddar and I added a few sun-dried tomatoes. This was a tasty quick bread that came together in no time.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Never call a stomach a tummy without good reason.” William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

I was glad I’d read her note saying that the tuna was good at room temp and that leftovers were delicious sliced and served on a green salad. I got a call I’d been waiting for all day just seconds before the fish was ready so I pulled it out of the pan and set it aside for nearly half an hour. Decided to just slice it and serve it on the salad. Good call.

This is definitely spicy. Much to my liking, but I’ll have to be careful to whom I serve it. I also think I could have cooked the fish probably 15 seconds less per side; it was pink in the center, but I would have preferred it more toward red.

Chris, I love the quiche maraichere for being more vegetable than custard and really loved your picture of the vegetables in the crust.

Becca, I'm so glad you like the chicken and so happy that you commented on how much flavor you got from the pan juices by just adding water. It's interesting to me how often the French use water where we would use a broth or stock.

Anna, the bread looks perfect -- I hope the staff like it.

JBN, the spice coating on the tuna -- as well as the doneness -- can be varied, but you know that. I'm sorry that you were called away just as dinner was almost ready, but happy that you were in the middle of preparing this dish which, as you discovered, is good at almost any temperature.

I messed this one up, so this is a cautionary tale: make sure you roll your crust thin enough. If left too thick the strong buttery flavor quickly overwhelms the surprisingly delicate flavors of the spinach and it gets lost. Even the bacon seems subtle compared to the heavily-browned, super-buttery crust. Oops. I just didn't take enough care here, figuring this was a surefire winner and not worrying about the little details. Yes, I managed to screw up a spinach and bacon quiche... I bow my head in shame.

I know I've said that some of the above recipes were easy, but this one takes the prize: 30 minutes start-to-eating, 20 of which are spent in the oven. The flavor will be almost completely dependent on the curry powder you use, so make sure to find one you like. I made it with a spicy one, but I'm sure it would be fine with something a bit less so. The cardamom rice pilaf was a perfect accompaniment, though I found it slightly too moist for my tastes. I also had a bit of trouble getting this to plate up neatly: the chicken in the packets tended to clump together a bit. Dorie, do you have a solution to this? Try to put it in the packet more loosely next time, maybe?

Here's a truely poor photo of the spiced butter-glazed carrots on page 335

along with a stuffed bell pepper - one of my husband's favorites. They were exoticly flavored, easy and delicious. I love the cardomom seeds - they add a new twist and lovely aroma. I did add a touch of brown sugar as my carrots were not the sweetest.
I'm going to try the veal marengo next week.

Anna N -- I'm so glad you made the Speculoos. Since that's the recipe with the Errata (for those of you who don't know: you must beat 1 large egg into the butter and sugar mixture before adding the dry ingredients), I'm spooked about it. It's a cookie I love, but the missing egg has made me nuts!

Dana -- happy you liked the carrots. And I'm glad that you added a little brown sugar on your own because you thought your carrots weren't so sweet. It's so important to taste and make adjustments, because it's impossible for an author to know the quality of a cook's ingredients. Nice work!

I made the Creamy, Cheesy, Garlicky Rice with Spinach to serve with a hunk of protein, but from here on in it's going to be a main course. Comfort food par excellence. My garlic cloves may have been small, or too fresh, or something. I've made a note to try the recipe with 3 instead of two.

So far, my biggest problem with this book is that I'm running out of synonyms for "delicious": Dorie has another winner here. I added the optional parsnips because I love parsnips (why don't they get the love they deserve, I wonder?), and for the wine I used a bottle of Big Dog Petite Syrah (a few ounces may have accidentally splashed into a glass next to the stove and not made it into the pot, however). I left the chunks of beef quite large, and made sure to very thoroughly brown them on all sides: this really amps up the flavors, which I thought were really nice. The texture of the beef is lovely, and the carrots retained just enough texture to not be mush. I served it with a side of mashed potatoes into which I mixed the garlic that cooked in the daube, mashed along with the potatoes. Overall, it was wonderful.

Making the Gerard's Mustard Tart tonight, for the Fridays with Dorie group...we'll see how it turns out. I found the mustard in a wine shop of all places, but I still need to track down the creme fraiche. It seems like I always see it at the store when I don't need it but there's none to be found when I have a recipe I need it for! Kinda like mascarpone whenever I have the urge to make tiramisu. I'd just make it myself, but I don't want to wait and I'd still have to go to the store to get the heavy cream...

If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry? ~Author Unknown

This is the same pumpkin tart first posted about by eldereno here. To be honest, I didn't care for this one. I found the filling somewhat bland, especially in comparison to the cheese, and I didn't like the taste/texture/temperature combination (I served it lukewarm, as suggested in the recipe). I think I definitely would have liked it better served warmer. I replaced the walnuts with pecans since that is what I had on hand: that worked fine. Since eldereno liked it, I can only chalk this up to personal taste.

If there's an award for "Absurdly Simple but Delicious" then I nominate this recipe. I never would have thought to steam spinach, nor season it prior to steaming. But this technique takes no more time than my usual saute in olive oil, is endlessly adaptable with various seasonings, and with little oil is lighter and (feels) healthier than my standard saute--and requires no attention by the cook. There's no garlic in this recipe, but the next time I make it, I'm trying it with sliced garlic. But the lemon zest in the original recipe is worth remembering--so good!

No picture, because it looks like the pile of spinach that it is, and it's pretty much all I had for dinner tonight, with some cheese and crackers. But definitely a keeper. This has changed the way I cook spinach. As Dorie suggests, it would make a great base for chicken or fish dishes.

Finally, finally made the Beef Daube! No Syrah here in the ingredient desert of Manitoulin Island but Kerry found a pleasant Shiraz that worked well. Here's a link to a photo and further discussion of the dish.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Never call a stomach a tummy without good reason.” William Strunk Jr., The Elements of Style

Finally, finally made the Beef Daube! No Syrah here in the ingredient desert of Manitoulin Island but Kerry found a pleasant Shiraz that worked well. Here's a link to a photo and further discussion of the dish.

I have a picture of Anna testing the Shiraz to see if it in any way resembled the Syrah I was supposed to get - but she won't let me post it!

If the idea of pancakes for dinner is appealing, then this savory pancake recipe is for you. Id never heard of farçous, but I love chard so this recipe caught my eye when first thumbing through the cookbook. Simple, quick, and delicious, these pancakes are chock full of greensthe chard plus parsley and chives, with onion, shallot, and garlic providing plenty more flavor. Dorie notes that the recipe is very flexible, and I can see how thats so. I probably used more chard than the recipe called for, but this is not the sort of recipe where strict measurements matter. YUM!

Accompanied by the classic carottes rapées, which I used to showcase the gorgeous multi-colored carrots that are appearing in the farmers markets now that its fall (sob). Perfect to add crunch and contrasting color to the plate. My poor photography does not do justice to the lovely colors on this plate.

Thanks to the handy food processor for grating the carrots then mixing the pancake batter, both of these were ready in less than 30 minutes (I halved the recipe). Dorie provides directions for holding the pancakes while you cook up the whole batch, but if you have hungry kids waiting, I can easily imagine serving them straight from the griddle.

I cannot get many different veal cuts here - shoulder is one one that is not available. (shanks, chops, scallopinni and ground are about it), so I subbed in shanks, braised them about an hour longer that the recipe (with shoulder) called for, separated the varous little muscles, and added them back into the stew. Served with little red potatoes that I peeled around the middle, we really enjoyed this and will make it again. The sweetness from the onions and played very nicely with the earthy mushrooms. If a stew can be elegant, this is it!!

The trick to this pot roast is that you start the day before and marinate the beef in wine and aromatics overnight. It doesn't really add any work, but requires that you plan ahead a bit (not usually my forte). I mostly followed the instructions on this recipe, up until serving: I personally prefer a thicker gravy with my pot roast, so I took some of the sauce and thickened it with a roux. It probably pulls it away from the French and solidly into American Pot Roast territory: oh well! Served with buttered and peppered egg noodles and peas, this would definitely not be out of place on any typical US table.